


Valentine’s Date

by LosttotheHoping



Series: Kage no Monogatari [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Humor, M/M, Shikamaru knows how these things work, Temari is a genius, Valentines, leather pants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LosttotheHoping/pseuds/LosttotheHoping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which things aren’t always as they seem, and even leaders can get terribly confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valentine’s Date

Sunagakure.  Known as the Great Desert City.  Full of nearly a million people, all going about their daily lives with nary a care in the world.

Gaara turned away from the view as he felt a familiar chakra approaching from the stairwell.  His brother stepped up onto the rooftop and gave him a jaunty wave.  “Hey, Gaara!”

The redhead took in his sibling’s manner of dress and tilted his head.  “Date tonight?” he asked softly.

Kankuro chuckled and rubbed a hand over his cloth-covered neck.  “Yeah.  Am I that transparent?”

“Only to me,” was the offhand response.  “What did you need?”

His brother switched easily from social to business.  “The envoy from Mizu no Kuni has arrived.  Interestingly enough, they hired Konoha nin as backup security.  Guess to prove that they’re taking this thing seriously.”  He rolled his eyes and offered a shrug.  “I’ve set them up with refreshments and they’re waiting on you now.”

“And the security?”

“Konoha’s relaxing in a lounge, Mizu’s in with the delegates.”

Gaara nodded and glanced out over the city again, before turning away from it all.  It took very little time to get to the room that Kankuro had set the foreigners up in, and when he entered, silence fell.  He discovered that Kankuro was only mostly right; there was still one Konoha nin among the party.

Shikamaru looked up at his entrance, and sat back with a wave.  “Kazekage-sama,” he greeted, voice _dripping_ boredom.

Resisting the sudden and strange urge to smile, Gaara nodded to him and stepped over to his seat.  “Good morning,” he said.  “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

There was a low round of ‘hello’s and ‘good morning’s, and he continued once they’d finished.  “As you know, this is an effort to maintain the treaties made during the third great ninja war…”

As he droned on, the redhead couldn’t help but note how _very bored_ the sole Konoha nin appeared to be, the whole time.

xXx

“Gaaraaaa!”  The redhead braced himself, even as Temari’s arms snapped around his shoulders from behind.  “Look at you!  Gosh.  Anyway!  I wanted to request time off tonight.  Have a date.”

He blinked at her over his shoulder.  “A date?” he echoed, frowning.  Both of his siblings?  Well, stranger things had happened.  “I guess.”

She pressed a big, sloppy kiss to his cheek, making him grimace.  “Awww, thank you!  You’re so sweet!”

He was left gaping after her when she bounced off again, and his companion snorted.  He’d almost forgotten that he was walking with Shikamaru; the other man was so _quiet_.

And Temari was just so very loud.  Sighing, Gaara looked at the Nara, brow-ridge wrinkling.  “What?” he asked.

“Nah, just appreciating how lucky I am to be an only child,” Shikamaru responded, smiling faintly at him.

Gaara had to fight to keep his irritated expression.  He eventually gave up and just smiled back.  A small smile.  Not the weird big grin that wanted to spread over his face.  That was…. _weird_.  “You _are_ lucky,” he agreed, quickly shoving aside the train of thought.  “Want them?”

“Nope.”  Shikamaru smirked.  “You keep them.  Please.”

Shaking his head, the shorter man lead the way to his office in silence before getting a scroll out of his desk.  “Here, may as well bring this back to your Hokage, if you don’t mind.”

Accepting it, Shikamaru blinked.  “Er, do you mind me asking what it is?”

“Recipe,” the redhead grunted.  “Temari fed the Hokage her hand-made ramen and the Hokage demanded she give him the recipe sometime.”

The dark-haired nin rolled his eyes.  “That’s Naruto,” he admitted, and tucked the scroll into his hip pouch.  “Um…  Are you… busy tonight?”

Gaara blinked and looked up at him from the assortment of papers he’d been contemplating on finishing.  “Hm?  No.”

The Nara relaxed slightly and smiled.  “Want to get something to eat?”

Tilting his head, the green-eyed male considered his companion.  He could think of worse ways to spend his time, and there was that strange ability that Shikamaru had, making Gaara want to smile all the time.  “Okay,” he said succinctly.

“Great.  Uhh… know any places?”  Shikamaru was doing that strange thing, where he was shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

Gaara eyed him strangely, but then shrugged.  “There’s a place that sells imported food, called Saki’s.  We can meet there.”

“Seven good?”

“Yes.”

Shikamaru smiled.

xXx

Over lunch, Gaara offhandedly mentioned his dinner arrangement to Kankuro.  Who promptly choked on his food.  “You- wha- I didn’t- Oh my god, my brain!” his brother wailed, and buried his painted face in his hands.

The redhead blinked, and simply stared at him.  After a few minutes, Kankuro peeked between his fingers and slowly lowered his hands.  “… it’s not a date?”

_Blink._  Gaara shifted, suddenly feeling rather overheated, and scowled at the older male.  “Why would it be a date, you idiot?”

“Oh god, it _is_!”  Kankuro edged away from him in horror.  “And _Nara_?”

The sand in his gourd began to shift ominously.  “What’s wrong with Shikamaru-san?” the redhead demanded, eyes narrowing.

Kankuro set down his obento and lifted both hands in surrender.  “Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

Satisfied, Gaara relaxed, and his sand went still.  “And no.  It’s not a date.  I don’t know _where_ you got that idea.”

Several minutes passed between them, during with neither said a word, and both picked at their food.

“… are you sure _he_ knows it’s not a date?” Kankuro ventured inevitably.

“ _Yes_ ,” Gaara growled.  Silence.  “… why?”

The puppeteer blinked at him in disbelief.  “You don’t… oh _wow_ , you don’t know what day it is!”

The redhead sighed.  This back and forth was getting tiresome.  “Okay.  Clearly you’re privy to something that I’m not.  So please explain it.  All of it.”

And so, for the next ten minutes, Kankuro explained Valentine’s Day.  In the end, Gaara was forced to conclude one thing.

He was going on a date with Shikamaru tonight.

xXx

“I don’t like it,” Gaara growled at his sister, staring at his reflection.  His hair had been dampened and combed back, but it was already returning to its former state.  That wasn’t the problem.  The problem was the tight, black leather pants she had somehow convinced him to force himself into.  “I won’t be able to sit without tearing them.”

Temari gave a long-suffering sigh and put both hands on his shoulders, meeting his gaze in the mirror.  “Gaara, dear brother… you’re not supposed to sit in them.  You’re supposed to wear them until he takes them off of you,” she said sweetly.

His face turned red in his reflection; clearly there was something wrong with this mirror.  “Oh,” was all he managed.

His big sister giggled and kissed his cheek, then turned him around to survey him more closely.  “Alright, I think this is good.”

He shook his head, remembering where they were _going_.  “I still can’t wear these pants, Temari.  We’re going out to eat, which means sitting.”

Temari gave him a smug look.  “Nope.  I already sent a change of location to him.”

Feeling a bit annoyed with her meddling, he crossed his arms over the loose red shirt she’d talked him into.  “And where is that?”

“Home!”  She winked and disappeared in a poof of smoke, even as there was a sudden knock on the door.

Gaara paled, slowly turning to look at it.  There was another knock, and he could feel Shikamaru’s chakra.   _I’m going to kill her_ , he thought furiously, even as he charged toward the door.  He paused, fingers wrapped around the handle, and sighed.  No, he wasn’t going to kill her.

He tugged open the door to find the other nin looking rather like he was meant to be there.   _But I might maim her instead_.  “Hello,” Gaara greeted, frowning slightly.

Shikamaru shrugged and tugged one hand out of a pocket to give him a wave.  “Yo.”

The words came tumbling out before Gaara could stop them.  “I didn’t know it was a date.  But Kankuro and Temari said it was.  And I panicked.  And that’s why I’m wearing these ridiculous pants.  So… so if they’re wrong, you should just leave.”

A beat followed that while Shikamaru seemed to process his words.  Then he nodded slowly.  “Kay,” he replied, and closed to door behind him on his way in.  “What are we eating?”

A part of the Kazekage untensed at this.  “Um…  Take out?  I don’t know.  I only just found out I wasn’t going to the restaurant.  But… they probably planned everything…”

Shikamaru shook his head.  “No, they didn’t,” he replied.  He paused, then amended, “Well they planned some of it.”

Several minutes later, after the Nara had drifted over to the couch and made himself comfortable, Gaara got it.  “Wait, you…”

“Kankuro may have mentioned that you knew _nothing_ about holidays, particularly this one.”  Shikamaru shrugged.  “After lunch, he approached me.  He already had some thoughts about the food, and the rest of it was me.”

_Even the pants?_ Gaara wondered, looking down.

His train of thought must have been easy to follow, because Shikamaru scoffed and muttered, “No, that was all Temari.  I did mention the red shirt though.”

Feeling very much like he was missing some crucial detail, the redhead shook his head.  Silence fell between them for a moment, and then he muttered, “I can’t sit down.”

Shikamaru blinked, and his gaze lowered to Gaara’s pants.  Surprisingly, he smirked.  “Your sister is a genius,” he declared, even as he got up to “help”.

xXx

Three days later, Gaara saw the envoy off and returned to his office, humming softly under his breath.  Kankuro smirked at him as he entered the room, but the redhead ignored him.  His brother gave up after a while.  “So?”

“So.  What?”  Gaara looked up at him and frowned.

Frowning, his brother crossed his arms.  “So, how did it go with Nara?  You seem happy, but I can’t tell if that means you mauled each other or…”  He paused, grimaced.  “ _Mauled_ each other.”

Gaara sneered at the insinuation.  “That’s none of your business,” he replied firmly.  “Get out of my office.”  He bent his head, clearly dismissing his brother from mind.

A beat.  “Next month?”

“The fifth.”

“Okay.”

The redhead glanced up, watching his brother wander from the room, and decided he needed to notify Shikamaru of Kankuro’s vested interest in their newly discovered relationship.

Also known as, ‘we need to visit in Konoha next time’.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters and Naruto do not belong to me, but to Masashi Kishimoto. I am responsible for creating the situation, and the storyline only. Please do not take and use or post elsewhere without my express permission. Thank you.


End file.
